Rev. LeRoy Attles: Heavenly grace and community service, The

New Crisis, The, Mar/Apr 2000 by Crowe, Steve

Henrietta Evans Attles smiles when she thinks back to those days and to her husband's response. "He survived and went on and developed it," she says. And now members take pride in what the church has become. Many changes are obvious. Membership has grown to 1,400 from 500. The former parsonage is now a shelter for homeless families. The church has 14 transitional homes, subsidized housing on 22 sites in the Boston area, and a staff of 25 to train and educate members of the church and community alike. A food pantry serves 3,000 families per year and provides holiday food baskets for 250 families. State and federal grants help pay for some of the programs, but church members carry the bulk of the financial load.

Businessman Carl E Barron has witnessed the church's impact on the neighboyhood. It was Rev. Attles who offered the Christian Life Center for a "unity dinner" that brought together business owners, clergy, city officials, social service agencies, and neighborhood representatives to address common concerns. The semiannual dinners are now sell-outs. Equally impressive has been the shelter's work. "I have heard women who were abused or addicted go before large groups and talk about how their rehabilitation was a result of his efforts," says Barron, who runs a furniture leasing business and has contributed money and furniture to the center.

The church traces its outreach ministries to an incident that happened in 1982. Rev. Attles saw a white woman and two young children sitting on the steps. He invited them inside and learned that the woman was staying at a shelter that forced tenants to leave between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day. She had not registered the children for school because she did not have a permanent address. Rev Attles asked a social worker on staff to call everyone in the city who had anything to do with housing and invite them to a meeting at the church that afternoon. When he walked into the room there were about 15 people. The meeting led to the church's creation of a lodging house.

"He wanted everybody to have a key to their apartment," Henrietta recalls. "He said they must maintain their dignity."

Perhaps there is more than a little irony in all this that the church on Bishop Allen Drive would extend grace first to a white person. But, it was appropriate because of the history of the denomination. The AME Church was established in 1787 after its founder, Richard Allen, and others were dragged from a Philadelphia church while praying outside the segregated area.

St. Paul's has a full schedule of programs for its own members: the Henry Buckner School (open to the community) has about 80 students in the infant-toddler-through-- first-grade and after-school programs. The church runs support groups for every need, consulting services for filing taxes, and seminars on everything from parenting to buying a house. Fridays and Saturdays the center is bustling with activity: church school, choir practice, youth groups, and a special program in math and science. Education is not the only measure of success, but it is taken seriously at this church. LeRoy and Henrietta Attles both have doctorates in education (hers is from the University of Massachusetts), and the city's school board meets in a room named for Henrietta, who served on the board in the 1980s.